Christie’s Comedy: Springsteen Is Real Boss Of NJ

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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on his late-night comedy debut early Wednesday that he’s now making his own posts on Twitter and expressed some doubt about whether Sarah Palin is presidential material.

The first-term Republican governor has been building a national profile in recent months as he became a big draw for Republican candidates nationwide. While he’s a regular on news talk shows, he didn’t take the plunge into comedy talk shows until his appearance on NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”

The governor, who regularly peppers his speeches with jokes, got some in with Fallon, too.

The host recounted how he invited the governor on air after they began trading barbs on Twitter.

It began when Fallon joked about Christie killing a plan to build a new rail tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. Fallon said the only way people will get to the Garden State will remain “by accident.”

When he repeated the line on the show, Christie gave him a hard stare, then deadpanned a joke of his own, evoking his state’s gangster image: “You think it’s funny, Jimmy? You know what we do to people like that in New Jersey, Jimmy?”

Christie explained, as he often has, that too much of the cost of the bridge was going to fall to his state. “There’s nothing New Jersey hates more than getting screwed by New York,” he said.

Christie said he does some of the tweeting that appears under his name — and he likes doing it.

Fallon asked Christie one of the topics that’s become a staple of news interviews, too: Is he considering a run for president in two years?
“No chance,” Christie said, adding he’s not interested in being vice president in two years, either. He said neither of those jobs have the same power that New Jersey’s governor gets under the state constitution.

When asked if Sarah Palin could be president, he didn’t exactly give an endorsement, saying, “It’s a crazy world.”

While an appearance on late-night talk show doesn’t mean a politician is running for president, such appearances have become a standard part of campaigning nationwide.

Christie also got the last laugh of the appearance, giving one downside to his job, and name-dropping a hometown musical idol, Bruce Springsteen: “Who am I kidding?” he asked. “Bruce is the real boss of New Jersey.”

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